


Sherlock Holmes Rediscovered Railroad Mysteries Review

by astronbookfilms (galaxyture)



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 16:37:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyture/pseuds/astronbookfilms
Summary: This post reviews the audiobook Sherlock Holmes Rediscovered Railroad Mysteries by John Taylor that is read by Benedict Cumberbatch. It is an original collection of stories and has no connect to BBC Sherlock.





	Sherlock Holmes Rediscovered Railroad Mysteries Review

The audiobook includes four half-hour long stories. According to the short introduction Dr. John Watson has found his notes from the cases in an old trunk. For various reasons they had not been properly written up and published. 

The stories are narrated by Watson. It is in the general style of Doyle although Watson is less descriptive than canon Watson and there are some subtle modernization. All three cases are interesting. Each one has several points of interest and in each one Holmes explains in easy to understand detail how he solved the case. The stories play fair and you can try to figure them out. The original characters are relatively interesting and generally feel like real people. There aren’t many women in the stories, but the ones that exist are treated as real people rather than plot devices. 

John Taylor gets the appeal of Sherlock Holmes. The cases are important, but he never forgets the partnership between Holmes and Watson. As with canon and some adaptations (Granada Holmes and the Old Russian/Soviet Holmes come to mind) 221B Baker Street serves as a sanctuary. At the end of the case it is time for Holmes and Watson to sit in front of the fire. Unless, of course, they will be heading to the opera. 

The first story is more about Holmes and Watson than about the actual case Holmes is trying to solve. The trusting friendship is on full display even as it is tested. A basic summary of the beginning:

Holmes: If I tell you about the case it will require you to be very inconvenienced and physically uncomfortable.   
Watson: I don’t care. I want to help you in anyway I can no matter what it entails. 

Watson is, as any canon fan knows, one of the most long-suffering mortals. He is also shown to be competent, a good and loyal friend, and a wonderful storyteller. As anyone who has read my other Sherlock Holmes related metas and reviews knows a major part of how I judge a non-canon Sherlock Holmes story is how Dr. John Watson is treated and I was satisfied with the Watson in these stories.

The other three cases are rather like Granada Holmes episodes in that it is always about the case, but the friendship and professional partnership between the two men is infused into the cases. The respect the two men have for each other is clear throughout the stories. 

One of my favorites of the cases reminded me a bit of “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” featuring a client’s son who appears to be guilty of committing a murder. The solution and Holmes’ method of testing his theory were very Holmsian.

There is not a lot of humour in most of the cases with the most probably being in one involving robbery of money from a church.

Benedict Cumberbatch does an excellent job reading the stories. The stories require him to adopt a number of distinct voices. My favorite was his Watson’s voice. His Holmes voice is noticeably different from the one he used on BBC Sherlock. His Cartwright voice was one of his stand-out voices. He gives life to the characters in a way that even many good actors fail to do when they read audiobooks. He seems to particularly relish the scenes where a character is nervous or overwhelmed.  

The only issue I had with Cumberbatch's voices- and I think he recorded this first so it is not his fault- is that one of the voices is very similar to one he used in the MadLibs theatre so I kept imagining the criminal gyrating a millimeter from the crime scene whenever he used the voice.  
Depending on where you live it may be available on iTunes and Audible.com


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